7 MAY 1881, Page 22

Calendar of the Mason Science College, Birmingham, 1880.81. . (Cornish Brothers,

Birmingham.)—We have just received this volume which we welcome as the first of what will bo, we hope, the records. of many prosperous years. It contains the speech delivered by Professor Huxley at the opening of the College, last October. That speech was criticised at the time in the Spectator. It was criticised,. we find, on reading the full report of tho proceedings, very effectively at the time. Professor Huxley, taking as a text the founder's injune- tiou that the College was not to give " mere literary instruction and education," and, interpreting this to mean "the ordinary classical course of our schools and Universities," attacked the humanists with much vigour. It seems that the injunction meant no such thing. At that very time the Trustees had declared that the College was to teach Latin, Greek, and modern languages and. English ; and they have, within the last few weeks, advertised for Professors who should undertake the direction of these studies. What Professor Huxley means by the "ordinary classical course," it is, of course, impossible to say. Perhaps he is thinking of thirty years ago. As things are now, to speak of the Universities alone, there is nothing studied in the Science College that is not studied with energy and success at Oxford and Cambridge.